A Pita Ten Fanfiction
By Dorian Alexander Patterson
Introduction
First, I thank you able reader for taking the time to choose my story to envelop your mind. I have to start off by warning you that this is currently a work in progress. The story itself is incomplete but hopefully you will be able to read the first finished rough draft by the end of the year. As such if you find any errors in grammar, punctuation, syntax, usage, or any other errors in the use of the English language, please feel free to notify me. I do ask however, that MAJOR criticisms are to be held until the first draft is finished. After all, one cannot fully understand and be critical of another's work unless the entirety of the work has been analyzed.
The purpose for which I write this short story is foremost a personal challenge. This story involves a romantic couple for whom no other person had written as far as I know, and I have looked thoroughly. I have no idea if I can effectively write a coherent, tangible, and plausible plot but I'm giving it the old college try (if I'm using the phrase incorrectly, oh well).
Pita Ten is story about a young elementary student in Japan named Kotaro Higuchi and his encounters and adventures with an angel named Misha. There are two versions of the original story: an 8 volume manga by Koge-Donbo which is the original and a 26 episode anime adaption by Akemi Menda and Yasuko Kobayashi (1). The two stories share almost parallel story lines although supposedly the manga has a more mature style than the anime. This story is based solely but loosely on what I know from the anime. The time period in which my story begins is after the end of the anime one month before the summer break.
This story's protagonist is Koboshi Uematsu, the girl who has a crush on Kotaro in the series. She is in the same grade and class with the bulk of the cast. Her feelings for Kotaro are trivialized and exaggerated in the series and the feeling of jealously and competition is somewhat unjustified: Misha acts as an older sister to Kotaro, but because of Misha's completely disregard for Japanese basic social etiquette (her "glomping" if you will), Koboshi feels threatened unnecessarily. The relationship between Koboshi and Misha has an interesting dynamic; Kotaro tolerates and eventually accepts Misha as she is. Koboshi feels she has to get along with Misha to please Kotaro thus gaining favor. However she cannot get over the fact that Misha is older (with the accompanying physical attributes – her breasts – which is parodied as an issue during "How To Have Fun When Going Into an Onsen") attaches herself to Kotaro in a, physically speaking, leech-like manner.
For readers who are unfamiliar with the source material and certain conventions of Japanese life, there are a few things I ought to explain. Misha ends much of what she says with the phrase "'su" which is the abbreviation of "desu" which is also the shortened form of "de amirasu(であります)" which means "It is so. (2)" This signifies her character as childish (3). Like other Asian cultures such as in Korea (4), everyone refers to one another with specific title signifiers or honorifics (and while this exists in America, the use of titles is very lax and not as significant). The ending "-chan" signifies that both the speaker and the person spoken to are female and of the same age. The ending "-kun" tends to have more affection implied and is commonly used between couples (either hetero, homo, or uh, other). The ending "-san" is used as term of respect someone who is older than the speaker. In a school setting, the ending "-sempai" is used instead.
I have not completed all the research and fact-checking I have planned to do, so if you are better informed on the background and lifestyle of Japan and anything to do with Pita Ten please feel free to inform me, including sources of reference, of course.
The last thing I need to mention is the title. Now if you're reading this, obviously "A Pita Ten Fanfiction" is most likely redundant. The truth is I want to give this story a title after it is finished so I can give an appropriate one that suits the story as a whole. However I could not stand to have this posted as "Untitled", so hence "A Pita Ten Fanfiction"
To the seven reviewers, thank you. I really hope I can finish this story by the end of the year, preferably sooner.
Notes
1 – From "Pitaten." Wikipedia. Last modified September 2, 2006.
2 – From "I is Gaijin-san de arimasu." Hontou ni sou omou. Blog. Published. February 1, 2006.
3 – I've read this on a note of a fan subbed episode, but I can't find the episode at the moment.
4 – I'm half-Korean so…-